


Orpheo Looks Back

by lordy_lou



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Vecna
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2018-08-08
Packaged: 2019-01-21 00:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12445257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordy_lou/pseuds/lordy_lou
Summary: Except here’s the thing that Percy and Scanlan have sworn to never truthfully confess: Percy really did lose his arm.For a bit, anyways.It got better.





	1. In Which We Lose A Soul

_you must cross a muddy river where love tends to fear._  

_say you don’t look:_

_there’s only one way on back from here._

 

—

 

Except here’s the thing, the thing that Percy and Scanlan have sworn to never truthfully confess: Percy really _did_ lose his arm. 

 

For a bit, anyways. 

 

It got better.

 

—

 

Scanlan is dozing in Whitestone when there’s a vicious pounding on the door, a loud bang of wood on stone, and Pike’s high, clear voice echoing through his chambers.For a wonderful moment, Scanlan thinks: _This is it.This is how I die: killed by Pike in my bedroom.It’s what I’ve always wanted._

 

Then he stops and realizes what Pike’s shouting. 

 

“Grog,” she says, panicked and pale.“He drew a card—he’s not there, Scanlan.”Then she stops, stutters.“I—I mean, his body’s here, but he’s empty, I saw him draw a card in the courtyard and he’s _empty, Scanlan.”_

 

Scanlan sits up quickly and maneuvers his way down from the bed— _Humans_ , he thinks _, and their overlarge things—_ to grab Pike’s hand, and he pulls at the dregs of his magic— _I need more sleep_ —to snap them beyond the walls of his room to the courtyard close to his window.True to Pike’s word, Grog is supine on the cobblestones, a deck of cards scattered over his body.

 

“Are those the same cards Grog talked about in the bar?” Scanlan asks, although he thinks he knows the answer.Yes, of course, why had they left Grog alone with potentially dangerous objects _again?_

 

Well, because he’d be upset, and upsetting Grog sucked and he’d already messed with the goliath’s mind earlier that day.Never mind, then.

 

“I’m out of magic,” Pike says quickly, bending down to her friend.“I already tried two Greater Restorations, Scanlan.”She weaves her small fingers into Grog’s beard, tugging firmly.No reaction.Her other hand is still tight around Scanlan’s, and he wills his heart not to skip a beat or five.“Nothing’s working.Do you have any—no, shit, you wouldn’t, you used everything you had for Vecna, shit shit _shit—”_

 

Pike pulls on Grog’s beard a bit harder now.And again. _Much_ harder this time, ow.Grog’s eyes are open but unmoving.There’s a curious, forbidding black card clutched in his right hand.His chest is moving ever-so-slightly, but there’s none of the solid, bloody energy Grog generally carries in his every movement.

 

For not the first time in less than 24 hours, Scanlan feels the lack of magic within him.There’s a great, yawning chasm within in him from which he knows he can twist reality to suit his needs, where he knows the gods can bend to _his_ belief if only he words it right, and only if _he’s got enough fucking energy_. 

 

Scanlan gently kneels down and picks up the scattered cards.It’s difficult and careful, especially with Pike’s deathgrip on his other hand, but he does it anyways.After that, he calmly speaks into his earring.

 

“Oi! Scanlan here.We’ve got a problem.”

 

—

 

Keyleth makes her way outside, rumpled and red-eyed and smelling suspiciously of bear.She looks warily at the deck of cards held loosely in Scanlan’s left hand, and bends down towards Grog’s body with glowing fingers, her magic a deep, steady green.Scanlan feels Pike’s hand tighten even more— _How?!_ —around his own, and hears her breathing start to stutter just the faintest bit.

 

“Pike,” Scanlan whispers as Keyleth silently inspects Grog’s body, “if we can’t fix it now, I’ll be able to fix it when we wake up tomorrow.”Then, even though he know’s it’s pointless, knows she’ll do it anyways: “Don’t worry.”He wants to move closer to her, to wrap her in his arms, but—but.But.Put it out of mind.She’d said something before the battle, about how if they survived—but they didn’t, not all of them, not Vax finally whole and unafraid and then dead.Or had it just been himself?One friend is laying catatonic on the ground before him and another friend is dead, had been dead, and Scanlan couldn’t save him, hadn’t had enough.

 

Pike turns into him, and his mind goes mercifully blank.She’s not crying, but her slow, measured breaths into his shoulder speak volumes and she’s still holding on to his hand like a lifeline. 

 

“We’ll fix this,” Pike murmurs between breaths.“It’s not up to you, not alone.”

 

Keyleth stands from her crouch and blinks slowly at the pair of them.Scanlan feels suddenly, horribly aware of Keyleth’s tear-stained face, but she thankfully speaks before he can butcher an apology, an explanation.

 

“I can’t wake him up,” she croaks.“His body’s fine, but it’s like he’s not in there.”

 

Scanlan nods, and does not bring his arm up to hold Pike, but _damn_ it’s close and he’s pretty sure Keyleth sees it and gods, she winces and turns her face back towards Grog.

 

“Percy and Vex are a ways out in the forest tonight,” she says.“I’ll ask some guards to carry Grog in, and we’ll look at him in the morning.”

 

She walks away.She does not look back. 

 

 

—

 

In the morning, he _cannot_ fix it, as it turns out.

 

He casts the spell, oh yes—that great space for magic within him is empty now, his words ripping through the air as he wills Grog whole—oh, he casts it as his ragged, strange family looks on with half-hope.Vex and Percy smell of the woods, Pike slept by Grog’s bed, and Keyleth…still smells like bear.Hmm.

 

Kaylie is tapping her fingers against the doorjamb and her eyes widen like Artagyn’s had as Scanlan wishes.As he Wishes, he supposes.He hums and knows his tunes can change reality— _bring back my friend, bring back my favorite idiot, bring back the one who takes me seriously, bring back the big guy, whole and hale and mostly illiterate so Pike can smile and we can grieve and—_ and the aura of the magic is palpable, burning and incredible, and nothing fucking happens.

 

Grog doesn’t move beyond the continual rise and fall of his gargantuan chest.There’s a chorus of obscenities from ( _the remnants of_ ) Vox Machina and Scanlan’s tempted to join except his senses are suddenly overtaken by a maddening rush of sound and sight and smell and screaming winds, with dark, twisting halls and shrieking figures crawling every which way, all guarding a ruby.

 

_Inside the ruby_ , the magic—oh, _yes_ , he knows this voice, and he throws a quick thought to his goddess—tells him, _is your friend’s soul.This is Pandemonium, in the Windswept Depths of chaos, and this is where the card has drawn him._ _This is where you must go._  

 

His vision clears, his ears pop, and then Scanlan realizes his friends (? (it’s only been _a fucking week_ )) are staring at him, and he tastes ozone and power and… purple? Yes.Purple, in his mouth. 

 

“Pandemonium, huh?” says Vex weakly.“That’s a trip.”Keyleth closes her eyes, Percy groans, and Pike sighs. 

 

In his head, he hears Ioun’s voice again: _You’ll want to bring earplugs_. 

 

“Well. Isn’t that just fantastic,” Scanlan says, and starts to walk past Kaylie gather his gear, and he sees the rest of the group do the same.He feels hollowed out with grief and residual elation and the idea of never getting a rest, and he sees his daughter make cautious eyes at the group as they shuffle by, and knows that she’s seeing the same thing in all of their faces.

 

Vox Machina, down two ( _three)_ , off again on another adventure, and may wonders never cease.  All praise to mighty Vox Machina, saviors of the land proper, and never mind the death that follows in their wake.

 

He manfully resists the urge to kick Grog’s body as he passes by.It’s a near thing. 

 

—

 

_say you don’t look, cause it’ll disappear._

 

 


	2. In Which We Think Some Thoughts

_you were a shameless child,_

_bandied by stiff cross-currents._

 

* * *

 

 

Pandemonium, when they reach it, absolutely blows.Literally and figuratively. 

 

But really, Scanlan isn’t exactly certain what else he should have expected after the vision Ioun had granted him.At least she’d had the forewarning to tell the group to invest in some earplugs before shifting this plane of hellish winds.

 

(They’d done a day of research before they’d left, as soon as Scanlan’s spell had failed (as always).Vex, Keyleth, and Pike all headed back to Vassalheim and poked around in the archives, and Percy had run himself ragged in his workshop creating individual sets of moulded cotton and wax for each of them.

 

As for himself?Scanlan sang for Percy in the workshop and puttered around Grog’s room and peeked in on Kaylie as she napped off fucking _dying_ yesterday.

 

He sometimes thinks back to their first flute duel, and how he should’ve recognized her then.Scanlan knows his own face _very_ well, and hers is a mirror except for her mother’s button nose and the shorter hair, and they share the same long-fingered musician’s hands, quick and only callused on the fingertips.

 

When he told her he’d have to leave again for Pandemonium, she surprised him.

 

“You love ‘im, right?The big guy,” she’d said, and as always she’d read the answer in his face before he’d been able to speak.“Then go save him.You killed a god yesterday, you can handle some wind.”

 

Scanlan hadn’t corrected her—they’d sealed Vecna, not killed him—but nodded instead, and pulled her close to him. 

 

“I love _you,_ too,” he’d said softly.“But you’re right.I need to do this.” 

 

( _You made me feel small_ , he remembers, and the shame burns him still.)

 

“You do,” she’d responded.Then she pushed him away.“Now get the fuck out.I need to sleep.” 

 

He’d left, smiling, his heart warm and worried all at once.Then he’d gone to Grog’s room, cussed out his comatose body, and left a shiny rock from Whitestone’s gardens at the bedside.All in a day’s work.)

 

But: back to the earplugs.They’re handy in that the screaming is muted; they’re decidedly _not_ handy due to the fact that a good portion of what he does relies on being heard.As it is, the few things they’ve run into have mostly died by the taller folk, who are all fighting with a new hardness he hasn’t seen but had definitely expected.He uses Mythcarver, mostly, and the damn thing’s still a bit unfamiliar but it does its job.

 

Pike is quiet and her jaw stays clenched for the entire first day of travel—they’d had to walk, because the wind would’ve dispersed their mist forms into oblivion—until Scanlan and Percyboth realize that the gravity within these howling tunnels is _entirely relative_ to the center of the tunnel.So they both start climbing the rocky walls and walk their way along the ceilings of the maze, Scanlan occasionally chucking stones and attempting to hit in front of the ladies on the bottom (? (if the center of gravity is so subjective, where’s the bottom if the middle is up?)) as the three trudge along the start of a trickling, freezing river.

 

It’s quiet, honestly.It’s not technically true, of course, due to the sheer maddening noise pressing down on them—but from what he recalls, their journeys had always been accompanied by chatter.He remembers honking around on the shawm while the rest of the group talked, the bright spots of laughter from Keyleth and Tiberius, the loud patches of squabbling from the twins, the biting slyness from Percy, and Pike and Grog in counterpoint like a highland fiddle over a contrabass. 

 

And him. 

 

For the first day, it’s quiet.It remains quiet even as he creates his mansion, and everyone seems to disappear into their rooms before they can have much of a conversation.Scanlan wanders to his music room and fools around for a bit, but he can’t help but to feel drained without an audience and goes to bed quickly.Walking in the wind had been exhausting, anyways.

 

On the second day, Scanlan Wishes before he leaves his room, before most anyone else is awake.

 

_Oi, Vox Machina!_ he thinks, as loudly as he can (not as odd as it might seem—like erasing someone’s memories, or dominating a monster; a focus where Ioun’s eye sits), and he counts four shrieks echoing throughout the halls of the mansion. 

 

“Scanlan, _what the fuck?!”_ Vex comes hissing over his earring.“We were _asleep_!”

 

There’s a crackle and a snap as someone else puts in their earring, and Keyleth’s groggy voice joins in.“Yeah, Scanlan—wait, what was that, anyways?”

 

In his room, Scanlan grins. _Something new I’m trying._

 

In his earring, there’s a quiet, horrified breath.“Oh gods, no,” Percy says.“You can’t—”

 

_Scanlan?_ Pike’s voice comes in, but--oh, it’s in his mind, not in his ears, and it’s lovely.

 

_Yes, Pike?_ he responds, and he can’t keep the grin from his face. There’s a hum of laughter from her, buzzing around the front of his skull like a honeybee.

 

_This is a good idea,_ she thinks. _Thank you._

 

The rest of the group is quiet, and he realizes that they may have heard the conversation. 

 

Then, Percy audibly sighs over the telepathic bond. _Scanlan_ , Percy thinks—always clever, always quick to think these things out. _You keep getting weirder._

 

_From you, Percival, I’ll take that as a compliment._

 

_Guys?_ Ah, Keyleth. _Ooh, that’s weird. Anyways. Scanlan? Can we have some actual granola for breakfast this morning, and not just… toasty nuts?I miss honey._

 

Scanlan isn’t sure if the snort comes from him or from his mind (oh, the conundrum built into that sentence), but Vex beats him to it. _You’re not satisfied with Scanlan’s toasty nuts, Keyleth?_

 

_You’re all disgusting,_ Percy thinks. _This is all very interesting, Scanlan, but please turn this off._

 

_Can’t!It’s a big ol’ spell._

 

There’s a chorus of groans (and, from Pike and Keyleth, an _oooh_ because hey, they’re spellcasters too and they _get it_ ) and Scanlan ponders telling them that the thoughts can be individually directed instead of to the group.

 

Nah.They’ll figure it out eventually.

 

_Did you know I sing in my head when I get dressed for the day?Because you’re about to find out._ There’s a scattershot of obscenities blasting through his skull, but he drowns them out with glee.

 

_I never meant to cause you any sorrow…_

 

—

 

As it turns out, the slow, windswept wandering is better on the second day, and the third, and the fourth, and so on all the way to the seventh.Yes, the winds are still howling and yes, his spells are still difficult, but the repeated castings of an extended telepathic bond each morning means they can at least talk to each other during the interminable slog through Pandemonium. 

 

He’d said it was a big spell, though, and he isn’t lying.He’d seen the spell—or, at least, Dr. Dranzel had described it to him, when he’d first started out as a player in the troupe and he’d missed a cue and fucked up a turnaround.Well, no.Described was also a poor word: it’d turned into a lecture of sorts. 

 

_“It’s a cheap tactic for bad musicians, my young Scanlan—you let your teammates know what’s up through rehearsal and just damn knowing them.Pay attention next time.You’ll hear Kent breathe right before the downbeat, and who knows?You might even start listening to the rest of us better too.”_

 

He’d been right, of course—even now, Scanlan sniffs through his nose before he sings, as if he’s counting other people in.No one had ever noticed except for Kaylie, and her count-ins had always been more like nods, as befitting her better education (well, for a _bit_ ) at the College of the White Duke.But those had been the days when Scanlan was fresh to the professional life, and even then, that was music, not a band of heroes and killers and blessed folk. 

 

_Scanlan, we’re getting some bleed-over,_ Vex thinks, and her eyes are squinted against the wind. 

 

_Right, sorry, sorry.My bad._

 

Scanlan hadn’t figured on that, though.It turns out that any kind of hard focus has a habit of leaking over into everyone else’s thoughts.It’s kind of great during a battle: there’s a sort of preternatural hive-mind that means they’re harder to take by surprise.They can feel Pike’s love for Sarenrae in every heal she casts and the reach of the earth underneath their feet when Keyleth slams down a spell.They can feel both Vex and Percy’s singular, tracking focus on a followed shot and there’s a chorus that sings along with him as he spins songs for his friends.

 

To be frank, it’s _extremely cool_. 

 

On the other hand, Percy and Vex had tried having sex the second night, and the horror (or, in Scanlan’s case, morbid fascination—did Percy let out semen or smoke?Oh, the questions!) at everyone else’s realization had led to an extremely awkward breakfast the next day. 

 

It also means they all dream of Vax.

 

Most mornings, at least two people have red eyes when they wake up, and after the third night of memories—Vex’s this time—Scanlan offers to stop casting the spell on the next day.Percy looks like he’s about to say yes but Vex swallows and shakes her head. 

 

“I… I think we need to have this during battle, Scanlan.It’s too useful otherwise,” she says.Pike nods beside her, her lovely blue eyes half-lidded and still not entirely awake.

 

“It’s a little nice,” she says softly.“It means we can’t just shove mourning away for another time, and it means we all have each other.We all miss him.”

 

Scanlan looks to Keyleth instead, who has bowed her head over her granola.Her strong, callused fingers are twined into her hair, and her breathing is fast but steady.

 

(When they’d met, she had been so _young_.Gods, they’d all been young, but her especially—he hadn’t liked her much half of the time, but he’d left and returned and then she’d been so different, more confident in her skin and light. 

 

Now this group is a serious sort, and the passage of grief has swept so much levity out of them.

 

He misses Vax.He misses Grog.He misses Tiberius.)

 

Keyleth, her eyes wet and bright, nods.“We all miss him.We need to find Grog, and the best way to do that is to not die.The best way not to die is to live through the battles, and with Scanlan’s spell we’re filling in… we’re filling in the missing parts.”She’s a leader now, Scanlan realizes.She isn’t crying, but she’s close to it, and she swallows with some effort.“And Pike’s right.I don’t want to be alone.”

 

Percy shakes his head, but doesn’t say anything, and there’s a muted swell of annoyance in Scanlan’s mind—he doesn’t know if it’s his or someone else’s—and before he can stop himself, he says, “Well, Percy?What’s wrong this time?”

 

There’s an image that burns in his mind, then, and it’s short, from Pike’s perspective:all of the tall folk in the foyer of Castle Whitestone, Vax’s hair tied in twin buns and Keyleth and Vex staggering against each other.They’re clearly hungover from alcohol and crying and Percy enters the room.

 

“ _Well, I built things_ ,” the memory of Percy says, and Keyleth mutters something about different coping mechanisms.

 

Scanlan sees that he’s nowhere to be found in this memory. 

 

_Where am I?_ he thinks to Pike, and her gaze is solemn and heavy. 

 

_In the woods, where gnomes go,_ she responds, and it’s with just enough bite that Scanlan can’t help but to wince.

 

Ah.

 

Percy, meanwhile, remains silent.Vex has moved her hand to cover his and they’re looking at each other and Scanlan doesn’t doubt they’re having their own conversation.Handy, that.He waits until they look like they’ve finished and Vex flashes her dark eyes in Scanlan’s direction. 

 

He’d been a year away, but he knows _The Look_ when he sees it.

 

“Sorry, Percy,” he says.“I just… no. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like things in your head.”

 

And Percy, bless him, only sneers and tells Scanlan to stop apologizing all the damn time and to not presume what he does or does not like, and then he goes back to his room in the mansion.Vex sighs and stops by Scanlan for a moment before following her husband, bending down to kiss his cheek and whispering a _thank you for trying_ into his ear.

 

Keyleth wanders away shortly after—she says she needs to wash her face, and Scanlan knows she doesn’t, she’s just going to dash a few tears away before they leave (he gets it, really), so he smiles and says he’ll be waiting downstairs for them all.

 

Only Pike is left, and she’s still looking at him with that same heavy stare. 

 

“You know,” he says nonchalantly.“I think I’ll be apologizing for a while.”

 

“He was pretty mad,” she responds.“Like… Grog and I were mad, right?”Pike raises a finger to her mouth—her gauntlets aren’t on yet—and taps it, one-two-three.It’s her normal _I’m thinking of how to word this_ pose, and the quick waltz of her finger against her lips is still _completely_ devastating to him.Then, in Gnomish:“But Percy was ready to hurt you, I think.”

 

“No different from normal, then?”He responds in Gnomish, because—well, because every part of him will always trust Pike’s lead. 

 

“He’s not _that_ bad, Scanlan.”

 

“You’re right, he’s not.But he’s not that good, either.”

 

Pike’s heavy stare dissolves into something—dare he say it—fond. “So he’s a person, then. Just like you. Just like me.” 

 

Scanlan shrugs, flutters his hand for a _so-so_ effect.“Except _he’s_ freakishly tall.”

 

“True, true,” she says, mock-seriously, like it’s at all important, and then she laughs and there are very few things Scanlan loves more than the sight of Pike, joyous, her scar crinkling across her face and her tongue poking through the slight gap between her first two teeth. 

 

Then Pike stops and blushes, and he realizes _oh shit I focused too hard on her_ and there’s a grumble from the tall folk of Vox Machina (what’s _left_ of them, gods help them all). 

 

Scanlan panics in the most Scanlan way he can: when confronted with a problem, _sing at it._ He barely knows what comes into his mind, but there are actual, genuine groans from the rest of the group, except—

 

Pike lifts her chin and laughs, clear and loud, and then her eyes are bright as grabs his hands and twirls him and Ioun be praised, she’s leading him in a noisy clanking dance, all in full plate armor.

 

_Senora, she’s a sensation, the reason for aviation, and fellas, you’ve got to watch it—_

 

Gods, she can’t dance for shit, but she’s grinning anyways and she pulls him close and clumsily spins him out again, and he knows he will not forget this moment of movement and song, and he’s singing loudly as her strong hands lead him through a dance she only half-knows.

 

Their eyes meet, and he sees the same commitment to memory in her face, and he—impossibly—falls in love with her just a little bit more. 

 

For now, for this brief minute: it is _good._

 

—

 

On the eighth day, they find a huge stone encampment along the river, and Scanlan hears the wailing insanity even through the earplugs.

 

On the eighth day, Vox Machina arrives at the Madhouse. 

 

It all goes to shit after that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_here we go mistaking clouds for mountains_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (looks at calendar) oh jeez.
> 
> i guarantee that every single "wake the fuck up" song from scanlan is either prince or harry belafonte. don't fight me on this; you know this to be true deep within your soul. anyways: the first song scanlan sings is, of course, "purple rain". song two is "jump in the line".
> 
> reviews/kudos are appreciated!


	3. In Which We Lose An Arm

_all the calcified arithmetists were doing the math_

_and it would take a calculated blow to the head_

 

* * *

 

To be entirely fair, Scanlan thinks later, the day they’d come upon the Madhouse had _started out_ capital-S-Shitty.

 

He doesn’t usually dream, is the thing.It’s a quirk of his that he doesn’t really talk about much—he sleeps much too deeply to be bothered by nightmares, and the few times he does dream… well, they’re not great, and he does his level best to forget them. 

 

But on this eighth day, Scanlan dreams about the final battle with Vecna, and the yawning chasm within him after that single, shattering counterspell. 

 

He could have bought them time.Could have shifted the paradigm of the deal, could have blinded the Queen’s eyes to Vecna’s fall.

 

Gods, he _could have fixed it all_ , because that’s what he does: he has a trick up his sleeve, he’s inscrutable, he’s unstoppable, whatever it is, _Scanlan can do it._ He can burn down a mansion to start a revolution, he can sing monsters to him, he can shit in a bed and leave it behind with none the wiser, he can lie and grin his way into anything. 

 

Scanlan does not like himself.It’s not an always sort of feeling—nowhere near it—but there’s always going to be something within him that tries to push away, that tries to self-mythologize, that cheerfully builds walls and dares others to try to tear them down.It’s fine.It’s normal, he thinks. 

 

Again, though, it’s not an always sort of feeling.Sometimes he likes himself.He likes the echo of his smile on his daughter’s face.He likes the thrill of an audacious lie, and he likes to make Pike giggle and dance and Grog hoot and holler with laughter. He likes the soft harmonies and counterpoints he plays with Kaylie, and he likes the power he holds within himself. 

 

What he doesn’t like is others’ knowledge of his self-hatred.He knows that’s a part of why he left in the first place—they hadn’t known, and he’d never thought they wanted to know, and then it was broken hearts all around and Kaylie had once nearly punched him because he’d been drunk and sobbing about Percy’s sad dead family and Tibsy buried in books and Vax’s terrible sartorial decisions. 

 

He’d been a year gone, and he’d become good at opening up—hard not to, when you’re in constant company with someone who can always tell if you’re lying—and now that he was back with Vox Machina, it all got _fucking difficult_ again, even as he tried his best, because he’d changed but in so many ways they _hadn’t_.They’d seen him break and bite and scream, and they didn’t change.

 

_That’s a dangerous path_ , Scanlan thinks.He focuses on the problem at hand instead of the fear and anger squirming inside of his gut.

 

So now the whole team knew that he could have saved Vax. _Fuck._ At least the spell had worn off by now.

 

But they’d discussed dreams earlier in the week, along with the spell’s utility.They’d made a decision, that, come what may, they’d work through it together. 

 

So, on the eighth morning, Scanlan kneels, closes his eyes, and Wishes, and there is an echoing silence in his head.

 

_Good_ , Scanlan thinks to himself.He contemplates waking up the group, but he can’t muster any tunes.Maybe some food first.

 

He pads downstairs and only Keyleth is at the table, glaring with red-rimmed eyes at some granola.Shit.He turns to go back upstairs, because the only other person he wouldn’t want to talk to right now would be Vex (Pike… well, he always wants to talk to Pike; Percy would just ignore him or walk away) but he also forgets how damned perceptive Keyleth is, so she whips her head around at the soft noise at his feet.

 

They stare at each other.As are so many things with Keyleth, it’s extremely awkward.He should have stayed in bed.

 

She forces a wobbly smile onto her face.“Hi, Scanlan,” she says, and oh _fuck_ her voice is wobbling too, and he really can’t handle this right now, because she wears her emotions on her sleeve just as much as Vax had, and he really just _cannot do this._

 

(Scanlan has never been wise.) 

 

He walks past the table and heads out the front door of the mansion.The screaming of the winds in the widening cavern is, all in all, a fairly fitting accompaniment for his current headspace, and for a moment he contemplates taking his earplugs out and just _really_ letting the winds wreak havoc, but—

 

_Scanlan_ , thinks Keyleth, and he jumps to see her closing the door of the mansion behind her.Her eyes are still red. _You really gotta stop running._

 

He shrugs.Sometimes, speaking with Keyleth makes him feel too young.He kind of hates it.

 

_You know, you saved the world with your counterspell.We don’t blame you._

 

She is so tall; even taller with her antlers, and her hair whips in the wind all about her face.As much as they’d been sappy, she and Vax had been a striking couple.He turns back around.

 

_We?_ he thinks. _Or you?_

 

A hand falls upon his shoulder and squeezes gently. _You broke a lot of hearts when you left.But this is different.We don’t blame you.You loved Vax too._

 

Then Keyleth bends down beside him and hugs him to her, and he remembers the fall of Vecna, the gleaming arcane glyphs reflected in her eyes as Vax had held him close.Something in him shudders.

 

_You’re right,_ he thinks. _This is different._ Oh, she’s an odd one, but his heart goes out to her because gods, she’s trying her best.Sometimes her best is shitty, but she tries so _hard_ and she’s a whirlwind of fire, a tempest and the eye of a hurricane all in one.He reaches up and pats her awkwardly on the head, nearly stabbing himself on an antler as he does so. _Go on back inside.It’s awful out here._

 

Then, a pause, and he carefully thinks, _Thank you, Keyleth._ She squeezes him just a bit tighter, and while he can’t hear her footsteps he misses the warmth of her arms just a bit as she leaves to eat her sad breakfast in his mansion.

 

She’s right.It is different.When he’d failed them before—when he’d left, screaming and bitter—he’d been broken.But this?He’d been fixed, he’d been whole, and he could have saved it all.He _should_ have been able to save _everyone_.

 

Scanlan doesn’t usually dream.But the few times he does, they haunt him.

 

For a while, he thinks of a cloth over the Raven Queen’s eyes, and he thinks of Vax’s dark, gleaming wings. The winds buffet him where he stands and waits outside until the rest of the group has filtered out of the mansion and take up rank and file, quiet as the first day they’d arrived. 

 

Pike squeezes his arm as they begin to walk again.Percy and Vex are silent, paired in their grace and unwavering focus on what lies ahead. 

 

No time to look back.

 

Off Vox Machina goes, following the wind and the river.

 

—

 

The Madhouse is just that: maddening.But Scanlan can recognize the stonework and he can hear the screaming, gibbering creatures that tear around its base, and holy gods, it’s ridiculous.Who creates these things?What’s the need for its existence?

 

Sometimes, Scanlan thinks, things have been placed into reality just to upset him.How absurd the world is.They’d come upon it after a few hours of walking, and while he still hadn’t felt up to singing his normal marching songs, he’s managed a bit of a hum in the back of his mind that no one had objected to.Now they’re a good hundred and twenty feet or so outside of the foreboding iron gates, and Scanlan doesn’t think the things running around have taken any notice of them.Vex has scouted ahead just a bit, but has come back to stand with the group, near Keyleth and Pike.Percy and Scanlan bring up the rear and are quite manfully not paying attention to each other.

 

_This place looks terrible_ , Vex thinks, ever-eloquent. _Didn’t think this place could get worse, but here we are._

 

_No kidding,_ Pike replies. _So this is where Grog’s soul is?_

 

_It’s somewhere in there,_ Scanlan thinks. _Some hallway, according to the spell—well, really, Ioun, she’s the one who told me, I guess.Am I a divine caster now, Pike?_

 

The bright sound of her laugher, then _—Absolutely not._ She looks over at him and grins. _But I heard you’ve got one divine lady that likes you a lot._

 

_Many do,_ he says, because he can’t help himself sometimes.Besides, Sarenrae had seemed to like him as well.Two goddesses certainly counts as ‘many’ in his book. 

 

Her scar tugs her upper lip just a little higher, and her armor clanks when she laughs again, and it’s as his heart clenches at the sight when, predictably, things go a bit lopsided.All at once, Keyleth and Vex shriek over the telepathic bond as:

 

1) the doors crack open

 

2) the creatures around the base start racing towards them, slavering bugbears mutated beyond belief 

 

3) something truly monstrous slithers from the doors, fast as thought and sound and gods help him it’s heading towards Percy and Scanlan thinks _You can’t lose another, you can’t_ and grabs Percy’s hand and he is too _slow_ to counter the creature’s spell and Percy’s hand is tight in his as a tendril of darkness shoots from the _thing_ and there are four bugbears upon them and—

 

4) there is a terrible twisting, wringing sound, and Scanlan and Percy disappear from the front of the Madhouse.

 

—

 

Scanlan wakes to the sound of howling winds and monsters and a screaming Percy.

 

Not even in his mind, that.Just… screaming.Nearby.Percy, screaming, close. 

 

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit—

 

Scanlan forces his eyes open and he’s in a huge cavern, with that same sourceless wind, and it’s wholly enclosed (no escape _no escape_ ) and Percy is not five feet from him, on the ground.His guns are smoking and broken beside him, and he’s fruitlessly waving his sword left-handed at those same rabid bugbears, and there’s blood all over him, and he looks young and angry and frightened.

 

Another five feet away lies Percy’s right arm, very much unattached to his body.

 

Scanlan—well.It’d be inaccurate to say that he sees red.Instead, in a heartbeat, his vision flashes silver and he feels the touch of Ioun burning cold upon his soul, and there is a vicious glee as, for a second, the expanse of time and breadth of mortal knowledge stretches before him.In this, he has a breath of extra time for thought and his mind kicks into overdrive, the triage of battle as familiar as music.

 

First things first. 

 

He calls lightning to him as easy as a song, and it buzzes its way through the bugbears, knocking them back as he whistles a fast healing word to Percy, who has fainted entirely.Probably for the better.Scanlan runs towards the closest bugbear and draws Mythcarver, and he _knows_ this, he knows he can kill these things, and it’s just the right amount of pep talk to let the spirit of the sword overtake him.

 

One-two-three-four, slashing through like there’s nothing there, that’s one bugbear dead and sliced to bits.The three remaining are too far away to attack head on, so he throws another healing word Percy’s way— _please don’t die, your wife would fucking kill me—_ as he thinks of what to do next.

 

Ah.Old favorites.Otiluke’s Sphere around Percy, who doesn’t seem to be bleeding out now but sure as fuck isn’t capable of fighting (oh gods, his _arm_ ), then Bigby’s Hand, as strong as he can manage.Then Bigby’s Hand to punch at least one of the bugbears back while he casts lightning again and again, and he knows he’s screaming himself hoarse by now but the howling winds and blood rushing in his ears have made him deaf to anything.

 

Bigby’s to pick up bugbear, fastball special.Mythcarver again on the one who’s getting too close, quick one-two, _you can do this you stupid motherfucker,_ tumble backward away from the bugbear’s claws, close call, _shit be faster_.Bugbear assaulted by Bigby dead; two left and the exhaustion from the sword’s quick strikes has settled into his bones.Carefully, quickly, Scanlan does a quick inventory: a couple more spells should do this. 

 

Scanlan snaps his fingers, and both bugbears rocket towards the ceiling of the cavern and stay there, pinned by gravity.Bigby’s hand clenches, races towards them, and proceeds to pummel the living shit out of them.

 

As quickly as it’d seemed to start, it is over. Their bodies fall with wet thuds to the ground.

 

Scanlan blinks, hisses an exhale through grit teeth, and makes his way over to Percy the bubble boy.He’s gone unconscious again, but he’s not bleeding out anymore and he’s still breathing, so he has time for the spell to dissipate. 

 

_Pike?_ he thinks carefully.

 

There is only silence, except for the howling, omnipresent wind.

 

_Pike?_ he tries again. _Vex?Keyleth?_

 

Nothing.Not a shriek, not a whisper.Silence.Scanlan takes a deep breath and buries his face in his hands and shouts wordlessly, just for a bit.

 

They are disconnected from their friends.Scanlan takes another look at the cavern, and it is made-in-whole and there is no exit.Percy is missing his arm, and his healing spells are paltry.

 

Okay. First things first.

 

Scanlan sits cross-legged on the ground and casts his mansion.Then, carefully, he does his best to drag Percy in, and he cannot help but to smooth over the younger man’s hair as the movement stirs him into consciousness.There are tear tracks down his face, and flecks of black powder burns and shrapnel across his cheeks, and his eyes are wide and track Scanlan with frightful accuracy.

 

“Ssh, ssh,” Scanlan finds himself saying to Percy, dragging the man as carefully as possible across the threshold, and Percy doesn’t respond.There’s a faint, repeated _no—no—no_ coming from him in a tone that Scanlan isn’t sure he’s ever heard from Percy’s mouth. 

 

It’s sorrow and fear and shock, all in one, and he hadn’t heard it in Percy’s voice before but he recognizes the tones from his own past.It’s too much to take, so Scanlan calls his servants over to lift Percy—gently, damn it!—into a nearby bedroom.That _no—no—no_ seems to follow him out of the mansion. 

 

First he picks up the guns, holding them carefully in the crook of an elbow.Gods, they’re heavy. 

 

Then, gingerly, he picks up Percy’s arm, and it bends at the wrist as he holds it, and it leaks blood onto his leather vest.

 

Ugh.Scanlan grunts with the weight of the collected arms (ha!) and shoulders his way into the mansion.There’s a tiny trail of blood leading to the residential wing of the mansion, and the servants are already hard at work scrubbing it away.With some effort, Scanlan dumps the guns on the dining table, and gently places Percy’s arm in the icebox.It flops with the movement, resting palm-up as he settles it into the ice.

 

It would be wrong to high-five the thing.It would be absolutely wrong, 100%, no passing go, _wrong_.

 

He does it anyways.

 

It’s a little satisfying.

 

* * *

 

_let’s get out of here_

_past the atmosphere_

_squint your eyes and no one dies or goes to jail_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter: scanlan's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day
> 
> next chapter: a heart 2 heart
> 
> reviews and kudos are printed and taped to my fridge.

**Author's Note:**

> back on my bullshit again i guess 
> 
> reviews/kudos are the bee's knees, i've been told


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